


The Truth in Stories

by Twilight_Shadow_Songs



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tales, Gotham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 04:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1592426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_Shadow_Songs/pseuds/Twilight_Shadow_Songs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there's kernels of truth in every fairy tale ever told. Creeper knows this, so does Jack, so does Harley. Maybe their story isn't the <i>happiest</i> fairy tales in the history of anything, but since when were fairy tales supposed to be 100% <i>happy</i>?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth in Stories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CampionSayn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Twinning](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/52220) by CampionSayn. 



_”Oh, Jack what do I_ tell _them? The truth will frighten them, but they should know, somehow. I don’t want to make the same mistake I did with…with their mother…” a strong hand wrapped around the petite one, trembling and alone gripping the side of a cradle shared by two tiny little girls. It wrapped the small hand up so it wasn’t alone. “Tell them stories, Harl. Fairy tales, you’ve always been good at those. Tell them the truth, all wrapped up in fairy tales. People have done it for hundreds of years, so it’s a tried and true formula” the small woman turned to her long-time friend, worn and a little older looking, but no less beautiful than she’d ever been, not to him. “Thank you, Jack”_

Once upon a time there was a beautiful lady, strong and smart, a healer just beginning. But she was prideful and overestimated herself. The lady was put in charge of making a man-a prince-better, but the man was a skilled illusionist. The prince of smiles, prince of lies. She was won over by his charms and illusions and fell in love with him. An illusionist herself, she wrapped herself up in rags and lies and happily became the Prince’s little Princess.

Life was not always good, he hurt her and exiled her many, many times, but she made friends and grew and became strong in her new world. Many times he created monsters, and while the Princess was also now considered a monster, and so was her prince and her friends, but sometimes the monsters were too repulsive for even her to love.

Even if they loved her.

_Two little girls sat side by side listening to their grandmother. It was in a warm, cozy room as their grandmother told them stories they never thought to not believe. Wise of them, as the stories were truths wrapped in the pretty paper of fantasy. Creeper watched from a shadowed alcove outside their window. He’d helped Harley build this house, and there were plenty of spaces for him to watch-not near her bathroom of course, she refused to budge-but plenty of places to keep an eye on the little family. There were also plenty of escape routes, just in case. The former clown girl finished her story to her granddaughters and stood up to close the drapes on the windows. He moved to the window, being careful not to make too much of a presence, so that the tiny twins wouldn’t catch a glimpse of him. Harley was also careful to block him out of their sight as she adjusted the drapes. Creeper gave her his signature smile and an ‘all clear’ sign and a suggestive eye-brow waggle._

_Harley spared him a smiling ‘oh, really?’ look before placing a finger over her lips and closing the curtains. Creeper clapped a gloved hand over his mouth, attempting to quell the loud, signature insane laughter that signaled he was there. He jumped away from the window and landed by the unconscious would-be robber that he’d caught a few minutes prior. He’d knocked the punk out because he was annoyed he had to miss some of the story. Him and Jack, they loved the stories._

The Prince made many monsters, but the most monstrous may have been the one most similar to him, but with a pure soul. The Prince, he was trapped inside a curse, though he had already been a twisted man before. He took an innocent and mixed a curse of his own creation with the curse that had been placed on him, never expecting the innocent to live through it, or to not become as twisted as the Prince himself.

The Prince was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

His creation was a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

The creature, though frightening and loud, and now trapped in a sort of riddle-speak, and having a monstrous appearance, was really quite kind. He saw the Princess and fell in love, though she was frightened of him for a very, very long time. But though he had many chances to place the Princess in the castle’s cells and lock her away, he never did. Even when the Prince and Princess stole away the Dark Lord’s little protégé, the creature never turned her in. when the Princess was thrown into a dark chasm the Prince had earlier tossed the creature, he caught her, saved her, healed her mind and body and helped her hide away. 

_“They’re making drawings, Jack! Drawings of the stories at school! I got called into their teacher’s office today” Jack tried not to chuckle, but it was hard to when Creeper was laughing his head off at the same time. “Telling people about these stories seems like a good idea, Harl. Gotham’s very own list of fairy tales, told by the one woman who’d know them best” Harley cracked a smile but punched Jack hard enough to give him a dead arm. “They tell the children on the playground your story, you know. Yours and Creeper’s” She smiled wryly at his shocked expression. “It’s one of the more requested one besides the “Dark Lord” stories” Jack did laugh this time, and wiped an eye. “I’ll tell the ‘Dark Lord’ they’re just stories told by children to come to terms with what their parents tell them. I think he’ll buy that” Harley gave him a quick, grateful, hug. “Thanks, Ryder. Is Creeper stopping by tonight?” he and Creeper smiled at her, though she could only see one of their expressions. “Yea. He’ll be stopping by. Can you tell the story of the Scared Crow? It’s our favorite” She smiled slightly. “I’ll see what I can do”_

The Princess transformed herself from Princess to Lonely Queen and created an enchanted palace far away from the Kingdom she used to terrorize with the Prince. But it was magic all on its own and grew around her and her home. Because of her enchantments and the protection of the creature, it never got very close, but perhaps just close enough.

The Queen had a daughter, who took after the Prince, despite the Queen doing her best to save the girl. The creature also tried to help save her, but it was not enough. It seemed that the curse went deep and spanned generations. A ragged girl who ran away to a ragged world, The Queen retreated to another land where the Kingdom couldn’t reach her while she mourned her daughter. Many, many years later, the Queen received word her daughter had been found, broken and hurt. She had been found by the creature. She travelled back for her daughter, and received two tiny princess babies, born from her daughter and an unknown follower of the Prince’s memory.

She vowed to never leave the two princesses and raised them in the castle she raised her daughter, but with many enchantments removed, so perhaps they would not be so curious and hurt themselves so completely as their mother. The only protection was the creature, who watched them and protected them and kept them safe as the precious treasures they were.

It took a very long time for the Queen to be able to call herself a treasure as well. 

_They were teenagers, the twins, and running around with Jokerz, like their mother before them. It was Delia tugging the smaller one along with her. The little one who had come to believe Creeper was a guardian angel/guardian beast and had left snacks out for him on the back porch since she was twelve. Keeping up with Dee Dee as they now call themselves is a task and a half but it goes along with his vigilante work, despite getting older and switching to a 1920’s men’s swimsuit. Same color and pattern, same everything else, but Creeper had enough sense to know a wrinkly yellow body was_ not _something people wanted to see._

_He carefully nudges the twins towards the more harmless Jokerz group, killing two birds with one stone as he was also able to listen in to the plans and get his associates to stop the more dangerous crimes. The twins were developing into Harley and Joker and it made it necessary for Jack to forcibly take control of their body before Creeper ripped the throat out of the tiny female Joker before she could land another blow on the smaller body of her sister Deidre. This happens more than once and they’re both tired, and simply waiting for the little female Joker to make a full move._

_She knows they’re there. But unlike the little Harley sister, she fears them. Good. She should._

The daughters of the Ragged Princess grew up into tiny but beautiful young women, looking just like their grandmother, the Lonely Queen. But like the Ragged Princess, one of the little princesses was rotten inside like her grandfather. Cruel and powerful, she only feared her grandmother and the monster that prowled just outside her door. The other princess was sweet and gentle. She did not fear the creature, for that was who prowled, and left treats out for him. Once, when she got lost in the woods surrounding her home, he carried her back to her grandmother and sister. Wrapped red and yellow, she slept soundly in his arms until she was placed safely in her grandmother’s waiting embrace.

One sister was enchanted with the light and life of the Dark Lord and his protégés, for though they were sometimes frightening they were really good. She loved dances and enchanted things. The other preferred the dark of the Scared Crow and Riddle-Master. She preferred death and dark beasts that should never see the light of day. The dark sister dragged the gentler one into all the dark places as their grandmother waited with worry and the creature followed them and carefully made sure they didn’t die like their mother.

 _When Delia snaps, she_ snaps _and it’s all Creeper can do to protect Deidre. He doesn’t like Terminal, but the kid is a good fighter and is as protective of Deidre as Creeper is. They work together to keep the little thing alive. When Delia goes to visit Harley Creeper knows something’s off and Jack almost loses his job and his cover from the yellow man forcing the transformation. They get there in time, they can **hear** the violence inside. But Delia outsmarted them, that little bitch. However, there’s more than one way into the house._

_By the time they get in through one of the secret ways Harley designed into her house, the bad twin is gone and there’s Harley, sweet, spunky, loving Harley, still forevermore. For the first time since they became, Jack and Creeper are one man, and this one man is holding his love and_ **howling.**

The Wicked Princess killed her grandmother to gain the secrets of her grandfather, and the creature was not okay, not for a very long time. He caught the Wicked Princess once, but she had his Queen’s face and he could not land the blow. He couldn’t touch her, and so retreated. The other one, the good princess, the Sweetling, she had also gained secrets, secrets of her grandmother, and wrapped herself in the illusion of Scorn, while her own creature took on the mantle of a spirit of Wrath. 

Eventually, when the creature was old and close to joining his queen once more, the Sweetling found him and brought with her a little youngling of her own. Her creature stood beside her and they were smiling with the youngling looking at the creature curiously. But like his great-grandmother and mother, he was a good one. He was a good one. He went to the creature and curled up beside him and the creature held the youngling till he floated away on the dark of peace.

_Jack Ryder and Creeper were very, very old when Deidre found them again. She was a young woman and had married Terminal. She knew Jack and Creeper and greeted him like an old friend. “I remember you, you kept us safe. I sometimes saw you on the tops of buildings or in the woods you know. Watching us” Creeper smiled back at her and then looked in surprise at the little one that peeked from around Terminal’s legs._

_Deidre leaned down to her son and whispered something in his ear, and his face lit up and he ran to Creeper and hugged him. “I told him you were the creature from the story. It’s his favorite one. He wants to be just like you” Creeper rasped a laugh. He was dying; he knew it and Jack did. They’d decided that as Creeper was the braver one, it would be him that faced death. The yellow man wrapped a gloved arm around the tiny boy, who had his daddy’s hair and his mother’s gentle face. “Yer mom hasn’t told you the end of the story. You want to hear it?” The delight on the kid’s face was almost too much to bear._

_The moment the last words left his lips, was the moment he and Jack heard Harley’s voice. The voice of angels, of course it’d be her to come and get them. Creeper relaxed and closed his eyes, a hand that was and wasn’t his hand taking the gloved hand of a young Harley. Just like when he’d first seen her. She smiled over at her great-grandson, and then she and Creeper and Jack were gone._

_The story was complete._

**Author's Note:**

> this is loosely based on one of CampionSayn's stories on Fanfiction.net. she knows which one ;) she uses fairy tales in it as a way for Harley Quinn to tell her granddaughters her life story. I thought this was incredible and have been kicking this around for a while :) This is pretty much an AU of an AU because it takes place in sort of the same universe, as Delia still goes crazy and kills her grandmother, but in mine Creeper's this sort of silent guardian for the girls, and Deidre's not barren here :) 
> 
> CampionSayn, I wanted to post this for your birthday, but realized I don't know when that is. sorry! I hope you like it anyway :)


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